(A/N): To those of you who are still reading this I apologize. I got distracted by another story of mine then when I came back to this one I was annoyed by my writing… I did think of redoing it but now I've decided to just press on with the story with better writing and go and fix the earlier chapters once it's complete… just so you know lol
(Peter's POV)
We wandered into the quaint little town and I immediately noticed the atmosphere. It was tense, and it felt like people were watching us. Yeah, this is going to be fun. Link seemed pretty confidant though, which was nice. I stuck close to him to try and ease the knots in my stomach. He told us that we were going to Rusl his wife Uli first. We walked down a path along a creek and went up to the house, he just walked in without knocking.
"Link!" a pretty woman shouted and ran over to give him a huge hug. "I'm so glad you're ok, I was worried about you."
"Yeah I'm ok, mostly because I ran into Peter when I did," he smiled at me. She turned to me and I was surprised when she gave me a hug as well.
"It so nice to meet you Peter, I'm Uli" she said softly.
"It's nice to meet you to," I smiled and she gave us a sad look.
"I want you two to know that I am happy for you. If you make each other happy then nothing else matters, promise me that you'll remember that," she said earnestly.
"I'm guessing you've already heard some talk around town," Link said with a sigh and she nodded. "Right well I guess we'd better get this over with."
"Are you sure you want to do this?" I asked.
"Yeah, it'll be fine," he said and gave me a pat on the pack before leaving the house again.
"Good luck," Uli called kindly.
"Thank you," I gave a little head nod to her before closing the door.
"Alright… we'll leave Bo, he's the mayor, and Ilia for last. Let's go to Sera, she owns that shop," Link said as we walked along the creek again.
"This town is beautiful, it must have been nice to grow up here," I said.
"Yeah everyone knows each other and watches out for them… for the most part anyway," he muttered. I knew he thought at least a few of them were going to turn on him because of this. I glanced around before taking his hand in mine and he squeezed back gently.
"I'll be right beside you the whole time," I whispered in his ear as we stopped outside the store.
"Good, because I think she's going to be one of the bad ones," he said and dropped my hand as he opened the door.
"Good morn- oh… hey Link," the plump woman behind the counter 'greeted'. I saw her eyes slide over and fix me with a glare. I simply smiled and nodded my head in a sort of greeting and her glare intensified. Ok, obviously doesn't like me.
"Nice to see you too," Link said with a bit of sarcasm.
"How long are you staying in town for this time?" she asked.
"This time? You do know I technically live here right?" he asked.
"I was more wondering about how long that one would be here," she said and jerked her head in my direction.
"His name is Peter, not 'that one'," he said stiffly.
"I couldn't care less about what his name is, and I thought you would have known better than to mingle with their kind," she scolded.
"Their kind?" his voice raised a little and I could see his hands shaking.
"He's clearly ruined your innocents, what happened to the Link we all knew?" she asked.
"I'm right here you dumb Bi-mff" he was muffled after I slapped a hand over his mouth. She looked livid, she clearly knew exactly what he was going to say.
"It was nice to meet you Sera," I said politely, while in my head I finished Links sentence and more. I pulled him from the store before letting him go.
"Who the fuck does she think she is?" he yelled at me. The look in his eyes was fierce, it was the look that made me feel puny. It was scary.
"Link its ok. We knew this was going to happen," I said and stepped forward to hug him. He returned it softly.
"I'm sorry… I didn't expect them to go after you. And you just stood there and took it… I just couldn't handle it," he said softly. So that's what he was worried about, I couldn't help but smile at his protectiveness over me.
"I can handle it, don't worry about me. We're in this together right?" I asked and pulled away from him, he forced a smile and nodded. We turned to leave and found a rather small man standing there.
"Hanch," Link greeted cautiously.
"I heard what my wife said, and… I'm sorry," he said and Link blinked in surprise. "There's nothing wrong with it and you are clearly the same person you always were. Such a strong man you've become."
"Thank you sir," I said when Link failed to speak.
"You seem like a nice man," he smiled at me before disappearing into the shop.
"Wow, I though he did and said whatever his wife told him to," Link muttered to me.
"I guess he's not as whipped as everyone thinks then," I chuckled and he smiled.
"Well let's go see Jaggle," He said and headed towards a watermill. The man came over to us but he was too tongue tied to have much of a conversation with.
"So you… he's…and you're…" he kept looking back and fourth between us.
"Yeah, we're together," Link provided helpfully.
"Well that's… wow… I- yeah," He said. We excused ourselves quickly and burst into laughter once we were out of ear shot.
"What the hell was that?" I asked.
"I don't know," he said as we still laughed. We passed by another house and I could almost feel eyes on us again. Link said something about the man's face and we burst into fresh laughter. We went up to an entrance of some sort that led to a path up a hill.
"Who's next?" I asked after we caught our breath.
"Fado, he's the ranch hand. He should be ok," he said as we started up the path. A group of four kids came running up to us before we made it two steps. Link introduced them as Beth, Colin, Malo and Talo.
"Link! Mom said you were back, I'm glad you're ok," Colin said.
"Is this that guy?" Beth asked with a little sneer.
"This is Peter," Link said patently.
"Ah! You have a sword, that's so cool!" Talo said to me.
"But can you use it?" Malo challenged.
"I can use it, not near as well as Link can, but…" I said. Beth didn't seem to like being ignored.
"You are dating? That's so unnatural," she said.
"If they make each other happy that's not unnatural," Colin said and beamed at us. Link smiled and patted him on the head.
"Thanks Colin," he said. We talked to them for a while before Link suggested that they play by the creek. We turned to head up to the ranch and I got a shiver like I was still being watched.
"Link, That house that we passed back there…"
"Ilia and Bo," he said simply. The feeling of eyes as we went passed made way more sense. When we got up to the ranch the first thing we saw was a huge black goat running at us and a man shouting.
"HE'S HEADING FOR TOWN!" the man said unhelpfully and link stood in front of me. He caught the goat by the horns and wrestled with it for a second before he flung it on its side. The goat got up and walked in a defeated way back inside the gates.
"Been a while since I've done that," Link said. Ok… that was kind of hot.
"Whoo, thanks Link. I owe you one," Fado said as he jogged up to us.
"So how many would that be now?" Link teased.
"I lost track years ago," Fado chuckled.
"Anyway this is Peter," Link said and put a hand on my shoulder.
"I heard about you," Fado said and offered a hand for me to shake. "It's good to meet you."
"You too," I smiled as I shook his hand. Thank Aslan, he seems to be fine. We had a rather nice conversation with him. I did notice that he kept giving Link a curious look, and by some of the questions he was asking I had a hunch he had had a little thing for Link all along. That made me want to grab Link in my arms and make it clear to this man that he was mine. I restrained myself… somehow and we left the ranch feeling rather good, but we both knew that the hardest part was coming up.
"This is a little weird," He said.
"What is?"
"I'm usually riding Epona through here," he said.
"Well here, get on," I said and turned my back to him.
"Are you serious?" he laughed.
"Yeah, come on," I said and he leapt fairly lightly on my back and I took off down the hill with us both laughing. By the time we reached the bottom I could hardly breathe from how hard I was laughing and Link had his face buried in my shoulder. Someone cleared their throat and we looked up to see a large man watching us. We quieted down instantly.
"Hey there Link," the man greeted. Link slid of my back slowly and eyed the man cautiously.
"Hey Bo," he said.
"Listen… I have to admit I was upset at first. But then I thought about it and I see you two having so much fun and well… I decided that if you two are happy then who am I to say anything against that?"
"It's ok Bo. I know it must be a little weird at first… it was for us too," Link chuckled and I nodded. That was for sure.
"Anyway Ilia is on the war path, it's only fair to warn you. You do know that she likes you right," Bo asked.
"It would be hard for me not to notice," Link said.
"Right… well when you were to be engaged to the princess she took it really hard but she understood. Then you told us that you were going to break it off with her and she got her hopes up, that you actually loved her…"
"Then I disappeared and came back with a boyfriend," Link finished for him and Bo nodded.
"You know when I thought about it I think I always realized that you thought of her more like a sister," Bo scratched his head and Link sighed.
"We were raised together," Link said.
"Oh look, if it isn't the fairies," a cold voice said from the house. Link turned calmly to look at Ilia before responding.
"Fairies have saved my life on more than one occasion, so that isn't really an insult," He said and I smirked.
"You are a freak of nature," she seethed.
"Well which is it? You said I was a fairy already… and fairies are a very natural part of this world," Link said calmly. I was proud of him to say the least, but I was worried, I could tell it was still hurting him. I tried to make contact for some support, I reached up and placed my hand on his back in a way that they couldn't see it.
"Listen you little faggot-"
"Ilia!" Bo said, shocked. She continued like she hadn't heard anything.
"-nobody wants you here, so why don't you go back to wherever you picked up your little girlfriend," she yelled. I didn't care about being seen anymore I slid my hand up to wrap my arm around his shoulders.
"You know that's not true Link. There are still a lot of people here that support you," I said quietly.
"And you. I don't know what you did to change him so much but-"
"I like him for who he is. I would never ask him to be something he's not," I said and fixed her with a cold stare.
"What makes you think that you know him so well?" she snapped.
"Because I do. It's as simple as that," I said.
"What I want to know is what everyone thinks I'm supposed to be," Link said quietly.
"Well straight for one. You were supposed to be with me Link," her voice turned pleading.
"You're a sister to me Ilia. I never loved you in that way," he said.
"You're lying," she said.
"I'M NOT!" he yelled. "How could I ever love a selfish little girl like you?" She turned and ran back into the house and Link sagged a little.
"Are you ok?" I asked.
"I want to leave," he whispered.
"Link I'm sorry," Bo said before he went in the house. I grabbed his hand and led him back through the town and out to his house. I sat against a tree and pulled him down with me, I sat him between my legs and held him tightly. He leaned his head back on my shoulder.
"Well that sucked a little," he muttered.
"But it's over now, that was everyone in town right?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said.
"Ok so just relax and when you're ready we can start my tour," I suggested and he nodded. My mind wandered to the things that were said in town and one thing kept coming back up. I never really thought of myself as gay. The thought had crossed my mind a few times, like last night, but I thought it was just Link. Now that I'm really letting myself think about it though… I never have been interested in girls, but I haven't been too interested in guys either. Ok well there was that one duke that I thought looked handsome, oh and that knight I had a dream about…
I'm gay. It was so obvious, how did I not know? Aren't I a little old to be realizing this? I started laughing causing Link to tilt his head to look at me. I gave him a kiss and explained what I had just realized and how while he laughed.
"Don't worry. I only just realized it myself, a few weeks ago. We are both kind of idiots huh?" he asked.
"Well I think for us… when we were of the age that our hormones started going crazy we had a lot of other stuff on our plate. Then we just never thought about it," I said.
"Actually I think that's exactly right," he said and settled against me again.
"Well whatever happened, I'm glad it happened the way it did," I said.
"Me too," he sighed.